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SCIENCE  AND   IMMORTALITY 


Ofyt  Ingrrioll  lUcturr, 

SCIENCE 
AND   IMMORTALITY 


BY 

WILLIAM   OSLER,  M.  D.,  F.  R.  S. 

PROFESSOR   OF   MEDICINE,    JOHNS    HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

J^tcs?,  Cambribge 
1904 


COPYRIGHT    IpOJ.    BY   WILLIAM    OSLKR 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Published  October,  iqo4 


fa. 


THE    INGERSOLL  LECTURESHIP 


Extract  from  the  -will  of  Miss  Caroline  Haskell  Ingersoll, 

•who  died  in  Keene,  County  of  Cheshire,  New 

Hampshire,  Jan.  zb,  1893. 

First.  In  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  my  late 
beloved  father,  George  Goldthwait  Ingersoll,  as 
declared  by  him  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  I 
give  and  bequeath  to  Harvard  University  in  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  where  my  late  father  was  graduated, 
and  which  he  always  held  in  love  and  honor,  the 
sum  of  Five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  as  a  fund  for 
the  establishment  of  a  Lectureship  on  a  plan  some- 
what similar  to  that  of  the  Dudleian  lecture,  that  is 
—  one  lecture  to  be  delivered  each  year,  on  any  con- 
venient day  between  the  last  day  of  May  and  the 
first  day  of  December,  on  this  subject,  "the  Im- 
mortality of  Man,"  said  lecture  not  to  form  a  part 
of  the  usual  college  course,  nor  to  be  delivered  by 
any  Professor  or  Tutor  as  part  of  his  usual  routine 
of  instruction,  though  any  such  Professor  or  Tutor 
may  be  appointed  to  such  service.  The  choice  of 
said  lecturer  is  not  to  be  limited  to  any  one  religious 
denomination,  nor  to  any  one  profession,  but  may 
be  that  of  either  clergyman  or  layman,  the  appoint- 
ment to  take  place  at  least  six  months  before  the 
delivery  of  said  lecture.  The  above  sum  to  be 
safely  invested  and  three  fourths  of  the  annual  in- 
terest thereof  to  be  paid  to  the  lecturer  for  his 
services  and  the  remaining  fourth  to  be  expended 
in  the  publishment  and  gratuitous  distribution  of 
the  lecture,  a  copy  of  which  is  always  to  be  fur- 
nished by  the  lecturer  for  such  purpose.  The  same 
lecture  to  be  named  and  known  as  "the  Ingersoll 
lecture  on  the  Immortality  of  Man." 


J203L 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAP. 

I.  INTRODUCTION 
II.  THE  LAODICEAN  s 

III.  THE  GALLIONIANS 

IV.  THE  TERESIANS 34 


Cebes  answered  :  "  I  agree,  Socrates,  in  the 
greater  part  of  what  you  say.    But  in  what  con- 
cerns the  soul  men  are  apt  to  be  incredulous." 
Phado,  Plato,  Jowetfs  Translation, 
3d  ed.  II.  209. 

"  But  surely  it  requires  a  great  deal  of  argu- 
ment and  many  proofs  to  show  that  when  a  man 
is  dead  his  soul  yet  exists,  and  has  any  force  or 
intelligence."  Ibid. 

Strange,  is  it  not  ?  that  of  the  myriads  who 
Before  us  pass'd  the  door  of  Darkness  through 
Not  one  returns  to  tell  us  of  the  Road, 
Which  to  discover  we  must  travel  too." 

Rubdiydt  of  Omar  Khayydm. 

"  Plant  one  eye  of   faith  in  the  eye  of  the 
soul  and  itt  will  utterlie  darken  with  its  heavenly 
brightness  the  eye  of  sense  and  reason,  as  the 
sunne  the  lesser  starres." 
Diary  of  the  Rev.  John  Ward,  of  Stratford- 
upon-Avon,  164.8  to  1679,  London,  1839. 

"Gone  for  ever!    Ever?     No  —  for  since  our 

dying  race  began, 
Ever,  ever,  and  for  ever  was  the  leading  light 

of  man."  Tennyson. 


SCIENCE  AND    IMMORTALITY 


INTRODUCTION 

N  all  ages  no  problem  has  so  stretched 
to  aching  the  pia  mater  of  the 
thoughtful  man  as  that  put  in  such 
simple  words  by  Job :  "  If  a  man  die,  shall 
he  live  again  ?  "  Appreciating  the  fact  that 
a  question  of  such  eternal  significance  pre- 
sents special  aspects  at  special  periods,  Miss 
Caroline  Haskell  Ingersoll  founded  this  lec- 
tureship in  memory  of  her  father,  George 
Goldthwait  Ingersoll,  of  the  class  of  1805. 
Knowing  that  the  days  were  evil  and  the 
generation  perverse,  and  imitating,  perhaps, 
the  satiric  touch  in  Dean  Swift's  famous 
legacy,1  she  made  this  community  the  re- 
cipient of  her  bounty. 

To  attempt  to  say  anything  on  immortality 
seems  presumptuous,  —  a  subject  on  which 


4  Science  and  Immortality 

everything  possible  has  been  said  before,, 
and  so  well  said,  not  only  by  the  master 
minds  of  the  race,  but  by  the  many  far  wiser 
than  I,  who  have  spoken  from  this  place.  But 
having  declined  the  honor  once,  and  hav- 
ing learned  from  President  Eliot  that  others 
of  my  profession  had  also  declined,  when  a 
second  invitation  came  it  seemed  ungracious, 
even  cowardly,  not  to  accept,  though  at  the 
present  moment,  before  so  distinguished  an 
audience,  I  cannot  but  envy  the  discretion 
of  my  friends,  and  with  such  a  task  ahead 
I  feel  as  Childe  Roland  must  have  felt  be- 
fore the  Dark  Tower. 

One  of  my  colleagues,  hearing  that  I  was 
to  give  this  lecture,  said  to  me,  "  What  do 
you  know  about  immortality  ?  You  will  say 
a  few  pleasant  things,  and  quote  the '  Religio 
Medici,'  but  there  will  be  nothing  certain." 
In  truth,  with  his  wonted  felicity,  my  life- 
long mentor,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  has  put 
the  problem  very  well  when  he  said,  "A 
Um  dialogue  between  two  infants  in  the  womb 
concerning  the  state  of  this  world  might 


Introduction  5 

handsomely  illustrate  our  ignorance  of  the 
next,  whereof,  methinks,  we  yet  discourse 
in  Plato's  denne  —  the  cave  of  transitive 
shadows  —  and  are  but  embryon  philoso- 
phers." Than  the  physician,  no  one  has  a 
better  opportunity  to  study  the  attitude  of 
mind  of  his  fellow-men  on  the  problem. 
Others,  perhaps,  get  nearer  to  John  taking 
no  thought  for  the  morrow,  as  he  disports  Autocrat 
himself  in  the  pride  of  life ;  but  who  gets  so  Breakfast 
near  to  the  real  John  as  known  to  his  Maker,  ™e 
to  John  in  sickness  and  in  sorrow  and  sore 
perplexed  as  to  the  future?  The  physician's 
work  lies  on  the  confines  of  the  shadow-land, 
and  it  might  be  expected  that,  if  to  any,  to 
him  would  come  glimpses  that  might  make 
us  less  forlorn  when  in  the  bitterness  of  loss 
we  cry,  — 

Ah  Christ !  that  it  were  possible  Tennyson, 

For  one  short  hour  to  see  Maud 

The  souls  we  loved,  that  they  might  tell  us 
What  and  where  they  be  ! 

Neither  a  philosopher  nor  the  son  of  a 
philosopher,  I  miss  the  lofty  vantage-ground 


6  Science  and  Immortality 

of  a  prolonged  training  in  things  of  the 
spirit  enjoyed  by  my  predecessors  in  this 
lectureship;  but  to  approach  the  problem 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  man,  part  at  least 
of  whose  training  has  been  in  the  habit  and 
Ethics  faculty  of  observation,  as  Aristotle  defines 
science,  and  whose  philosophy  of  life  is  as 
frankly  pragmatic  as  that  of  the  shepherd 
in  "  As  You  Like  It,"  2  may  help  to  keep 
a  discussion  of  the  incomprehensible  within 
the  limits  of  the  intelligence  of  a  popular 
audience. 

Within  the  lifetime  of  some  of  us,  Sci- 
ence —  physical,  chemical,  and  biological  — 
has  changed  the  aspect  of  the  world,  changed 
it  more  effectively  and  more  permanently 
than  all  the  efforts  o£  man  in  all  preceding 
generations.  Living  in  it,  we  cannot  fully 
appreciate  the  transformation,  and  we  are 
too  close  to  the  events  to  realize  their  tre- 
mendous significance.  The  control  of  physi- 
cal energies,  the  biological  revolution  and 
the  good  start  which  has  been  made  in  a  war- 
fare against  disease,  were  the  three  great 


Introduction  7 

achievements  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
each  one  of  which  has  had  a  profound  and 
far-reaching  influence  on  almost  every  rela- 
tionship in  the  life  of  man.  And,  not  know- 
ing what  a  day  may  bring  forth,  we  have  en- 
tered upon  another  century  in  an  attitude  of 
tremulous  expectation,  and  with  a  feeling 
of  confidence  that  the  cooperation  of  many 
laborers  in  many  fields  will  yield  a  still 
richer  harvest.  It  may  be  asked  at  the  out- 
set whether  the  subject  be  one  with  which 
science  has  anything  to  do,  except  on  the 
broad  principle  of  the  famous  maxim  of 
Terence,  "  Homo  sum ;  humani  nihil  a 
me  alienum  puto."  Goethe  remarked  that 
"  mankind  is  always  advancing ;  man  always 
remains  the  same ;  science  deals  with  man- 
kind," and  it  may  be  of  interest  to  inquire 
whether  in  regard  to  a  belief  in  a  future 
life,  mankind's  conquest  of  nature  has  made 
the  individual  more  or  less  hopeful  of  a  life 
beyond  the  grave. 

A  scientific  observer,  freeing  his  mind, 
as  far  as  possible,  from  the  bonds  of  educa- 


8  Science  and  Immortality 

tion  and  environment,  so  as  to  make  an 
impartial  study  of  the  problem,  would  be 
helped  at  the  outset  by  the  old  triple  classi- 
fication, which  fits  our  modern  conditions 
j  ust  as  it  has  those  of  all  ages ;  and  I  shall 
make  it  serve  as  a  framework  for  this  lec- 
ture. While  accepting  a  belief  in  immortal- 
ity and  accepting  the  phases  and  forms  of 
the  prevailing  religion,  an  immense  majority 
live  practically  uninfluenced  by  it,  except  in 
so  far  as  it  ministers  to  a  wholesale  disso- 
nance between  the  inner  and  the  outer  life, 
and  diffuses  an  atmosphere  of  general  in- 
sincerity. A  second  group,  larger,  perhaps, 
to-day  than  ever  before  in  history,  put  the 
supernatural  altogether  out  of  man's  life, 
and  regard  the  hereafter  as  only  one  of  the 
many  inventions  he  has  sought  out  for  him- 
self. A  third  group,  ever  small  and  select, 
lay  hold  with  the  anchor  of  faith  upon  eter- 
nal life  as  the  controlling  influence  in  this 
one. 


II 


THE  LAODICEANS 

HE  desire  for  immortality  seems 
never  to  have  had  a  very  strong 
hold  upon  mankind,  and  the  belief 
is  less  widely  held  than  is  usually  stated,  but 
on  this  part  of  the  question  time  will  not  per- 
mit me  to  do  more  than  to  make,  in  passing, 
a  remark  or  two.  Even  to  our  masters,  the 
Greeks,  the  future  life  was  a  shadowy  ex- 
istence. "Whether  they  really  partake  of 
any  good  or  evil  ? "  asks  Aristotle  of  the  Ethics 
dead.  Who  does  not  sympathize  with  the 
lament  of  Achilles,  stalking  among  the  Odyssey, 
shades  and  envying  the  lowliest  swain  on 
earth  ?  "  It  harrows  us  with  fear  and  won- 
der," as  Jowett  says,  speaking  of  Buddhism, 
"  to  learn  that  this  vast  system,  numerically 
the  most  universal  or  catholic  of  all  reli- 


book  xi. 


io  Science  and  Immortality 

gions,  and  in  many  of  its  leading  feature? 
most  like  Christianity,  is  based,  not  on  the 
hope  of  eternal  life,  but  of  complete  anni- 
hilation." 3  And  the  educated  Chinaman 
looks  for  no  personal  immortality,  but  "  the 
generations  past  and  the  generations  to 
come  form  with  those  that  are  alive  one 
single  whole ;  all  live  eternally,  though  it  is 
only  some  that  happen  at  any  moment  to 
live  upon  earth."  * 

Practical  indifference  is  the  modern  atti- 
tude of  mind  ;  we  are  Laodiceans,  —  nei- 
ther hot  nor  cold,  but  lukewarm,  as  a  very 
superficial  observation  will  make  plain.  The 
natural  man  has  only  two  primal  passions, 
to  get  and  to  beget,  —  to  get  the  means  of 
sustenance  (and  to-day  a  little  more)  and 
to  beget  his  kind.  Satisfy  these,  and  he 
looks  neither  before  nor  after,  but  goeth 
forth  to  his  work  and  to  his  labor  until  the 
evening,  and  returning,  sleeps  in  Elysium 
without  a  thought  of  whence  or  whither. 
At  one  end  of  the  scale  the  gay  and  giddy 
Cyrenaic  rout  —  the  society  set  of  the  mod- 


The  Laodiceans  n 

ern  world,  which  repeats  with  wearisome 
monotony  the  same  old  vices  and  the  same 
old  follies  —  cares  not  a  fig  for  the  life  to 
come.  Let  us  eat  and  drink;  let  us  enjoy 
every  hour  saved  from  that  eternal  silence. 
"  There  be  delights,  there  be  recreations  and 
jolly  pastimes  that  will  fetch  the  day  about  Milton, 


from  sun  to  sun,  and  rock  the  tedious  year  ic 
as  in  a  delightful  dream."5  Even  our  more 
sober  friends,  as  we  see  them  day  by  day,  in- 
terested in  stocks  and  strikes,  in  base-ball 
and  "bridge,"  arrange  their  view  of  this 
world  entirely  regardless  of  what  may  be 
beyond  the  flaming  barriers  —  fiammantia 
mania  mundi.  Where,  among  the  educated 
and  refined,  much  less  among  the  masses,  do 
we  find  any  ardent  desire  for  a  future  life  ? 
It  is  not  a  subject  of  drawing-room  conversa- 
tion, and  the  man  whose  habit  it  is  to  button- 
hole his  acquaintances  and  inquire  earnestly 
after  their  souls,  is  shunned  like  the  Ancient 
Mariner.  Among  the  clergy  it  is  not  thought 
polite  to  refer  to  so  delicate  a  topic  except 
officially  from  the  pulpit.  Most  ominous  of 


12  Science  and  Immortality 

all,  as  indicating  the  utter  absence  of  inter- 
est on  the  part  of  the  public,  is  the  silence 
of  the  press,  in  the  columns  of  which  are 

Gaiatians,  manifest  daily  the  works  of  the  flesh.  Any 
active  demand  for  a  presentation  of  the 
spiritual  and  of  the  unseen  would  require 
that  they  should  sow  to  the  spirit  and  bring 
forth  the  fruits  of  the  spirit.  On  special  oc- 
casions only,  in  sickness  and  in  sorrow,  or 
in  the  presence  of  some  great  catastrophe, 
do  disturbing  thoughts  arise  :  "  Whence  are 

sheiiey,      we,  and  why  are  we  ?   Of  what  scene  the 

Adonais  ,  ,,  .  ,       , 

actors  or  spectators  ?  and  man  s  heart 
grows  cold  at  the  thought  that  he  must  die, 
and  that  upon  him,  too,  the  worms  shall  feed 
sweetly.  Few  among  the  religious  can  re- 
proach themselves,  as  did  Donne,  with  an 
over-earnest  desire  for  the  next  life,  and 
those  few  have  the  same  cause  as  had  the 
Divine  Dean  —  a  burden  of  earthly  cares 
too  grievous  to  be  borne.  The  lip-sigh  of 
discontent,  when  in  full  health,  at  a  too 
Psalms,  prolonged  stay  in  Kedar's  tents  changes 
quickly,  in  sickness,  to  the  strong  cry  of 


The  Laodicean s  13 

Hezekiah  as  he  drew  near  to  the  gates  of  Isaiah, 
the  grave.  And  the  eventide  of  We  is  not  * 
always  hopeful ;  on  the  contrary,  the  older 
we  grow,  the  less  fixed,  very  often,  is  the 
belief  in  a  future  life.  Waller's  bi-mundane 
prospect 6  is  rarely  seen  to-day.  As  Howells 
tells  us  of  Lowell,7  "  His  hold  upon  a  belief 
in  a  life  after  death  weakened  with  his  years." 
Like  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  "We  may 
love  the  mystical  and  talk  much  of  the 
shadows,  but  when  it  comes  to  going  out 
among  them  and  laying  hold  of  them  with 
the  hand  of  faith,  we  are  not  of  the  excur- 
sion." 8 

If  among  individuals  we  find  little  but 
indifference  to  this  great  question,  what 
shall  we  say  to  the  national  and  public  sen- 
timent ?  Immortality,  and  all  that  it  may 
mean,  is  a  dead  issue  in  the  great  move- 
ments of  the  world.  In  the  social  and  polit- 
ical forces  what  account  is  taken  by  prac- 
tical men  of  any  eternal  significance  in 
life  ?  Does  it  ever  enter  into  the  consider- 
ation of  those  controlling  the  destinies  of 


14  Science  and  Immortality 

their  fellow  creatures  that  this  life  is  only  a 
preparation  for  another  ?  To  raise  the  ques- 
tion is  to  raise  a  smile.  I  am  not  talking  of 
our  professions,  but  of  the  every-day  con- 
dition which  only  serves  to  emphasize  the 
contrast  between  the  precepts  of  the  gospel 
and  the  practice  of  the  street.  Without  a 
peradventure  it  may  be  said  that  a  living 
faith  in  a  future  existence  has  not  the 
slightest  influence  in  the  settlement  of  the 
grave  social  and  national  problems  which 
confront  the  race  to-day. 

Then,  again,  we  habitually  talk  of  the 
departed,  not  as  though  they  had  passed 
from  death  unto  life  and  were  in  a  state  of 
conscious  joy  and  felicity,  or  otherwise,  but 
we  count  them  out  of  our  circle  with  set 
deliberation,  and  fix  between  them  and  us 
a  gulf  as  deep  as  that  which  separated 
Dives  from  Lazarus.  That  sweet  and  gra- 
cious feeling  of  an  ever-present  immortal- 
ity, so  keenly  appreciated  in  the  religion 
of  Numa,  has  no  meaning  for  us.  The 
dead  are  no  longer  immanent,  and  we  have 


The  Laodiceans  75 

lost  that  sense  of  continuity  which  the 
Romans  expressed  so  touchingly  in  their 
private  festivals  of  the  Ambarvalia,  in  Pater, 
which  the  dead  were  invoked  and  remem-  Epicurean 
bered.  Even  that  golden  cord  of  Catholic 
doctrine,  the  Communion  of  the  Saints,  so 
comforting  to  the  faithful  in  all  ages,  is 
worn  to  a  thread  in  our  working-day  world 
Over  our  fathers  immortality  brooded  like 
the  day  ;  we  have  consciously  thrust  it  out 
of  lives  so  full  and  busy  that  we  have  no 
time  to  make  an  enduring  covenant  with 
our  dead. 

Another  reason,  perhaps,  for  popular  in- 
difference is  the  vague  mistiness  of  the 
picture  of  the  future  life,  the  uncertainty 
necessarily  pertaining  to  the  things  that 
"  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither 
have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  con- 
ceive," the  absence  of  features  in  the  pre- 
sentation which  prove  attractive,  and  the 
presence  of  others  most  repulsive  to  the 
Western  spirit.  What  is  there  in  the  de- 
scription in  the  Apocalypse  to  appeal  to  the 


1 6  Science  and  Immortality 

matter-of-fact  occidental  mind  ?  The  infi- 
nite monotony  of  the  oriental  presentation 
repels  rather  than  attracts,  and  the  sober 

piato,         aspirations  of  Socrates  are  more  appreci- 
Apoiogy      ated  than  the  ecstasies  of  St  johlL    Com. 

menting  upon  this  Jowett  says,  "  And 
yet  to  beings  constituted  as  we  are,  the 
monotony  of  singing  psalms  would  be  as 
great  an  affliction  as  the  pains  of  hell, 
introduc-  and  might  be  even  pleasantly  interrupted 
by  them."  How  little  account  is  taken 
of  our  changed  attitude  of  mind  on  these 
questions ! 

Emerson  somewhere  remarks  that  the 
cheapness  of  man  is  every  day's  tragedy, 
and  the  way  human  life  has  been  cheap- 
ened in  our  Western  civilization  illustrates 
practically  how  far  we  are  from  any  thought 
of  a  future  existence.  Had  we  any  deep 
conviction  that  the  four  thousand  persons 
who  were  killed  last  year  on  the  railways 
of  this  country,9  and  the  nine  thousand 
who  met  with  violent  deaths,  were  living 
souls  whose  status  in  eternity  depended  on 


The  Laodiceans  ij 

their  belief  at  the  moment  when  they  were 
sent  to  their  account  "  unrespited,  unpitied, 
unreprieved,"  —  had  we,  I  say,  any  earnest 
conviction  of  this,  would  not  the  hearts  of 
this  people  be  knit  together  in  a  fervid  up- 
rising such  as  that  which  brought  destruc- 
tion upon  Benjamin,  in  the  matter  of  a 
certain  Levite  sojourning  on  the  side  of 
Mount  Ephraim?  Think,  too,  of  the  count- 
less  thousands  of  the  Innocents  made  to 
pass  through  the  fire  to  the  Moloch  of 
civic  inefficiency !  Of  the  thousands  of 
young  men  and  maidens  sacrificed  annually 
to  that  modern  Minotaur,  typhoid  fever! 
We  intellectuals,  too,  bear  the  brand  of 
Cain  upon  our  foreheads,  and  cull  out  our 
college  holidays  with  gladiatorial  contests, 
which  last  year  cost  the  lives  of  thirty-five 
young  fellows,  and  brutally  maimed  other 
five  hundred.10  Rend  the  veil  of  familiarity 
through  which  we  look  at  this  bloody  re- 
cord, this  wholesale  slaughter,  and  a  cold 
chill  will  strike  the  marrow  of  any  thought- 
ful man,  and  he  will  murmur  in  shame :  — 


Horace, 

Carmina, 

1-35 


1 8  Science  and  Immortality 

Eheu !  cicatricum  et  sceleris  pudet 
Fratrumque.    Quid  nos  dura  refugimus 
Aetas  ?  quid  intactum  nefasti 

Liquimus  ?  unde  manum  juventus 
Metu  deorum  continuit.  n 


Eikono- 
klastes 


To  the  scientific  student  there  is  much 
of  interest  in  what  Milton  calls  this  busi- 
ness of  death,  which  of  all  human  things 
alone  is  a  plain  case  and  admits  of  no 
controversy,  and  one  aspect  of  it  relates 
directly  to  the  problem  before  us.  The 
popular  belief  that  however  careless  a  man 
may  be  while  in  health,  at  least  on  the 
"low,  dark  verge  of  life  "he  is  appalled  at 
the  prospect  of  leaving  these  warm  pre- 
cincts to  go  he  knows  not  where,  —  this 
popular  belief  is  erroneous.  As  a  rule,  man 
dies  as  he  has  lived,  uninfluenced  practi- 
cally by  the  thought  of  a  future  life.  Bun- 
yan  could  not  understand  the  quiet,  easy 
Life  and  death  of  Mr.  Badman,  and  took  it  as  an 

Death  of  ... 

Mr.  Bad-  mcontestible  sign  of  his  damnation.  The 
ideal  death  of  Cornelius,  so  beautifully  de- 
scribed  by  Erasmus,  is  rarely  seen.  In 


TJje  Laodiceans  ig 

our  modern  life  the   educated   man   dies 
usually  as   did   Mr.    Denner   in  Margaret  John 
Deland's    story  —  wondering,    but    uncer- 


tain,  generally  unconscious  and  uncon- 
cerned.12 I  have  careful  records  of  about 
five  hundred  death-beds,  studied  particu- 
larly with  reference  to  the  modes  of  death 
and  the  sensations  of  the  dying.  The  latter 
alone  concerns  us  here.  Ninety  suffered 
bodily  pain  or  distress  of  one  sort  or  an- 
other, eleven  showed  mental  apprehension, 
two  positive  terror,  one  expressed  spiritual 
exaltation,  one  bitter  remorse.  The  great 
majority  gave  no  sign  one  way  or  the  other  ; 
like  their  birth,  their  death  was  a  sleep  and 
a  forgetting.  The  Preacher  was  right:  in 
this  matter  man  hath  no  preeminence  over 
the  beast,  —  "  as  the  one  dieth  so  dieth  the 
other." 

Take  wings  of   fancy,  and  ascend  with 
Icaromenippus,  and  sit  between  him   and 
Empedocles    on    a    ledge    in    the    moon,  Ludan, 
whence  you  can  get  a  panoramic  view  of 
the  ant-like   life   of    man   on   this   world. 


2o  Science  and  Immortality 

What  will  you  see  ?  Busy  with  domestic 
and  personal  duties,  absorbed  in  civic  and 
commercial  pursuits,  striving  and  straining 
for  better  or  worse  in  state  and  national 
affairs,  wrangling  and  fighting  between 
the  dwellers  in  the  neighboring  ant-hills,  — 
everywhere  a  scene  of  restless  activity  as 
the  hungry  generations  tread  each  other 
down  in  their  haste  to  the  goal,  but  no- 
where will  you  see  any  evidence  of  an 
overwhelming,  dominant,  absorbing  passion 
regulating  the  life  of  man  because  he  be- 
lieves this  world  to  be  only  the  training- 
ground  for  another  and  a  better  one.  And 
this  is  the  most  enduring  impression  a 
scientific  observer  would  obtain  from  an 
impartial  view  of  the  situation  to-day. 


Ill 


THE  GALLIONIANS 

HE  great  bulk  of  the  people  are 
lukewarm  Laodiceans,  concerned 
less  with  the  future  life  than  with 
the  price  of  beef  or  coal.  Our  scientific  stu- 
dent, scanning  his  fellow  men,  would  soon 
recognize  the  second  group,  the  Gallionians, 
who  deliberately  put  the  matter  aside  as  one 
about  which  we  know  nothing  and  have  no 
means  of  knowing  anything.  Like  Gallic, 
they  care  for  none  of  these  things,  and  Acts, 
live  wholly  uninfluenced  by  a  thought  of 
the  hereafter.  They  have  either  reached 
the  intellectual  conviction  that  there  is  no 
hope  in  the  grave,  or  the  question  remains 
open,  as  it  did  with  Darwin,  and  the  absorb- 
ing interests  of  other  problems  and  the 
every-day  calls  of  domestic  life  satisfy  the 


22  Science  and  Immortality 

mind.  It  was  my  privilege  to  know  well 
one  of  the  greatest  naturalists  of  this  coun- 
try, Joseph  Leidy,  who  reached  this  stand- 
point, and  I  have  often  heard  him  say  that 
the  question  of  a  future  state  had  long 
ceased  to  interest  him  or  to  have  any  influ- 
ence in  his  life.  I  think  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  attitude  of  mind  is  more 
common  among  naturalists  and  investigators 
than  in  men  devoted  to  literature  and  the 
humanities. 

Science  may  be  said  to  have  at  least  four 
points  of  contact  with  a  belief  in  immortal- 
ity. In  the  first  place,  it  has  caused  a  pro- 
found change  in  men's  thoughts  within  the 
past  generation.  The  introduction  of  a  new 
factor  has  modified  the  views  of  man's  ori- 
gin, of  his  place  in  nature,  and,  in  conse- 
quence, of  his  destiny.  The  belief  of  our 

i  coHnthi-  fathers  may  be  expressed  in  the  fewest  pos- 
sible words  :  "For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even 

Donne,       so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."   Man 

Biathana- 

tos  was  an  angelus  sepultus  which  had  — 


The  Gallionians  23 

Forsook  the  courts  of  everlasting  day,  Milton, 

And  chose  with  us  a  darksome  house  of  mortal  clay.     HVmn 

to  the 

Created  in  the  image  of  God,  "  sufficient  to  Nativity 
have  stood,  though  free  to  fall,"  he  fell,  Paradise 
and  is  an  outlaw  from  his  father's  house, 
to  which  he  is  now  privileged  to  return  at 
the  price  of  the  Son  of  God.  This  is  the 
Sunday  story  from  orthodox  pulpits,  and  it 
is  what  we  teach  to  our  children.  On  the 
other  hand,  to  science  man  is  the  one  far- 
off  event  towards  which  the  whole  creation 
has  moved,  the  crowning  glory  of  organic 
life,  the  end-product  of  a  ceaseless  evolution 
which  has  gone  on  for  aeons,  since  in  some 
early  pelagian  sea  life  first  appeared,  whence 
and  how  science  knows  not.  The  week-day 
story  tells  of  man,  not  a  degenerate  de- 
scendant of  the  sons  of  the  gods,  but  the 
heir  of  all  the  ages,  with  head  erect  and 
brow  serene,  confident  in  himself,  confident 
in  the  future,  as  he  pursues  the  gradual 
paths  of  an  aspiring  change.  How  pro- 
foundly the  problem  of  man's  destiny  and 
of  his  relation  to  the  unseen  world  has  been 


24  Science  and  Immortality 

affected  by  science  is  seen  in  the  current 
literature  of  the  day,  which  expresses  the 
naturally  irreconcilable  breach  between  two 
such  diametrically  opposed  views  of  his  ori- 
gin. But  this  has  not  been  wholly  a  result 
of  the  biological  revolution  through  which 
we  have  passed.  The  critical  study  of  the 
Bible  has  weakened  the  belief  in  revelation, 
and  so  indirectly  in  immortality,  and  science 
has  had  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  credi- 
bility of  what  purports  to  be  a  direct  revela- 
tion based  on  miracles.  The  younger  ones 
among  you  cannot  appreciate  the  mental 
cataclysm  of  the  past  forty  years.  The  bat- 
tle of  Armageddon  has  been  fought  and 
lost,  and  many  of  the  survivors,  as  they 
tread  the  via  dolorosa,  feel  in  aching  scars 

the  bitter  change 

Paradise        Of  fierce  extremes,  extremes  by  change  more  fierce,  — 
Lost 

the  heavy  change  from  the  days  when 
faith  was  diversified  with  doubt,  to  the 
present  days,  when  doubt  is  diversified 
with  faith. 


The  Gallionians  25 

Secondly,  modern  psychological  science 
dispenses   altogether  with   the   soul.    The 
old   difficulty   for  which    Socrates    chided  piato, 
Cebes,  who  feared  that  — 

the  soul 

Which  now  is  mine  must  reattain 
Immunity  from  my  control, 

And  wander  round  the  world  again,  —  Matthew 

Arnold 

this  old  dread,  so  hard  to  charm  away,  lest 
in  the  vast  and  wandering  air  the  homeless 
Animula  might  lose  its  identity,  that  eter- 
nal form  would  no  longer  divide  eternal 
soul  from  all  beside, — this  difficulty  sci- 
ence ignores  altogether.  The  association 
of  life  in  all  its  phases  with  organization, 
the  association  of  a  gradation  of  intelli- 
gence with  increasing  complexity  of  organ- 
ization, the  failure  of  the  development  of 
intelligence  with  an  arrest  in  cerebral 
growth  in  the  child,  the  slow  decay  of 
mind  with  changes  in  the  brain,  the  ab- 
solute dependence  of  the  higher  mental 
attributes  upon  definite  structures,  the 
instantaneous  loss  of  consciousness  when 


26  Science  and  Immortality 

the  blood  supply  is  cut  off  from  the  higher 
centres  —  these  facts  give  pause  to  the 
scientific  student  when  he  tries  to  think 
of  intelligence  apart  from  organization.13 
Far,  very  far,  from  any  rational  explana- 
tion of  thought  as  a  condition  of  matter, 
why  should  he  consider  the,  to  him,  un- 
thinkable proposition  of  consciousness  with- 
out a  corresponding  material  basis  ?  The 
old  position,  so  beautifully  expressed  by 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "Thus  we  are  men 
and  we  know  not  how  :  there  is  something 
Reiigio  in  us  that  can  be  without  us  and  will  be 
after  us ;  though  it  is  strange  that  it  has 
no  history  what  it  was  before  us,  nor  can- 
not tell  how  it  entered  us,"  — this  old  Pla- 
tonic and  orthodox  ,view  has  no  place 
in  science,  which  ignores  corrfpletely  this 
something  that  will  be  after  us.  The  new 
psychologists  have  ceased  to  think  nobly 
of  the  soul,  and  even  speak  of  it '  as  a 
complete  superfluity.  There  is  much  to 
suggest,  and  it  is  a  pleasing  fancy,  that 
outside  our  consciousness  lie  fields  of  psy- 


The  Gallionians  27 

chical  activity  analogous  to  the  invisible 
yet  powerful  rays  of  the  spectrum.  The 
thousand  activities  of  the  bodily  machine, 
some  of  them  noisy  enough  at  times,  do 
not  in  health  obtrude  themselves  upon  our 
consciousness,  and  just  as  there  is  this 
enormous  subconscious  field  of  vegetative 
life,  so  there  may  be  a  vast  supra-conscious 
sphere  of  astral  life,  the  manifestations  Henry 
of  which  are  only  now  and  then  in  evi- 
dence, —  a  sphere  in  which,  where  all  the 
nerve  of  sense  is  numb,  in  unconjectured  in  Memo- 
bliss  or  in  the  abyss  of  tenfold  complicated  " 
change,  the  spirit  itself  may  commune  with 
others,  "  Spirit  to  Spirit,  Ghost  to  Ghost," 
and  do  diverse  wonders  of  which  we  are 
told  in  the  volumes  of  the  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  and  which  make  us  ex- 
claim with  Montaigne,  "  The  spirit  of  man 
is  a  great  worker  of  miracles." 

Thirdly,  the  futile  search  of  science  for 
the  spirits. '  It  may  be  questioned  whether 
more  comfort  or  sorrow  has  come  to  the  race 
since  man  peopled  the  unseen  world  with 


28  Science  and  Immortality 

spirits  to  bless  and  demons  to  damn  him. 
On  the  one  hand,  what  more  gracious  in 
life  than  to  think  of  a  guardian  spirit,  at- 
tendant with  good  influences  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave,  or  that  we  are  surrounded  by 
an  innumerable  company  from  which  we  are 
shut  off  only  by  this  muddy  vesture  of  de- 
cay ?  Perhaps  they  live  in  the  real  world, 
and  we  in  the  shadow-land !  Who  knows  ? 
Perhaps  the  poet  is  right :  — 

I  tell  you  we  are  fooled  by  the  eye,  the  ear  : 
These  organs  muffle  us  from  that  real  world 

Stephen  That  lies  about  us ;  we  are  duped  by  brightness. 

Phillips,  The  eaf(  the         doth  make  us  deaf  and  bUnd 

Herod 

Else  should  we  be  aware  of  all  our  dead 

Who  pass  above  us,  through  us,  and  beneath  us. 

If  we  had  to  do  only  with  ministering  spirits, 
what  a  benign  effect  such  a  belief  might 
exercise,  indeed  has  exercised,  on  the  minds 
of  men  ;  but,  alas  !  there  is  another  side  to 
the  picture,  and  there  is  no  blacker  chapter 
in  our  history  than  that  in  which  is  told  the 
story  of  the  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air 
and  his  legions.  For  weal  or  for  woe,  —  who 


TJie  Gallionians  29 

shall  say  the  more  potent  ?  —  it  is  impossible 
to  over-estimate  the  importance  of  this  belief 
in  a  spirit-world. 

The  search  of  science  for  the  spirits  has 
been  neither  long  nor  earnest  ;  nor  is  it  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  it  has  not  been 
undertaken  earlier  by  men  whose  training 
had  fitted  them  for  the  work.  It  is  no  clear, 
vasty  deep,  but  a  muddy,  Acheronian  pool 
in  which  our  modern  spirits  dwell,  with  Circe 
as  the  presiding  deity  and  the  Witch  of 
En  Dor  as  her  high  priestess.  Commingling 
with  the  solemn  incantations  of  the  devo- 
tees who  throng  the  banks,  one  can  hear 
the  mocking  laughter  of  Puck  and  of  Ariel, 
as  they  play  among  the  sedges  and  sing  the 
monotonous  refrain,  "What  fools  these 
mortals  be  !  "  Sadly  besmirched  and  more 
fitted  for  a  sojourn  in  Ancyra  than  in 
Athens  has  been  the  condition  of  those  Anatomy 

of  Melan- 

who  have  returned  from  the  quest,  and  we  c/lo^  Part 


cannot  wonder  that   scientific   men   have  ILse 
hesitated  to  stir  the  pool  and  risk  a  touch 
from  Circe's  wand.   All  the  more  honor  to 


jo  Science  and  Immortality 

those  who  have  with  honest  effort  striven 
to  pierce  the  veil  and  explore  the  mysteries 
which  lie  behind  it.  The  results  are  before 
us  in  the  volumes  of  the  Society  for  Psychi- 
cal Research,  and  in  the  remarkable  work 
of  that  earnest  soul,  F.  W.  H.  Myers.14 
To  enter  upon  a  criticism  of  this  whole 
question  would  be  presumptuous.  I  have 
not  had  the  special  training  which  gives 
value  to  a  judgment,  but  for  many  years  I 
have  had  a  practical  interest  in  it,  since 
much  of  my  work  is  among  the  brothers  of 
Sir  Galahad,  and  the  sisters  of  Sir  Percival, 
among  the  dreamers  of  dreams  and  the  seers 
of  visions,  whose  psychical  vagaries  often 
transcend  the  bounds  of  every-day  experi- 
ences. After  a  careful,  review  of  the  litera- 
ture, can  an  impartial  observer  say  that  the 
uncertainty  has  been  rendered  less  uncer- 
tain, the  confusion  less  confounded  ?  I  think 
not. 

Dare  I  say 

No  spirit  ever  brake  the  band 

In  Memo-  That  stays  him  from  the  native  land 

riam,  xciii. 

Where  first  he  walk'd  when  claspt  in  clay  ? 


The  Gallionians  31 

Who  dare  say  so  ?  But  on  the  other  hand, 
who  dare  affirm  that  he  has  a  message  from 
the  spirit-land  so  legible  and  so  sensible  that 
the  members  of  the  National  Academy  of 
Sciences  would  convene  to  discuss  it  in 
special  meeting  ? 

Fourthly,  knowing  nothing  of  an  immor- 
tality of  the  spirit,  science  has  put  on  an 
immortality  of  the  flesh,  and  in  a  remark- 
able triumph  of  research  has  learned  to 
recognize  in  every  living  being  at  once 
immortal  age  beside  immortal  youth.  The 
patiently  worked  out  story  of  the  morpho- 
logical continuity  of  the  germ  plasm  is  one 
of  the  fairy-tales  of  science.  You  who  listen 
to  me  to-day  feel  organized  units  in  a  gen- 
eration with  clear-cut  features  of  its  own,  a 
chosen  section  of  the  finely  woven  fringe  of 
life  built  on  the  coral  reef  of  past  genera- 
tions, —  and,  perhaps,  if  any,  you,  citizens 
of  no  mean  city,  have  a  right  to  feel  of  some 
importance.  The  revelations  of  modern  em- 
bryology are  a  terrible  blow  to  this  pride 
of  descent.  The  individual  is  nothing  more 


32  Science  and  Immortality 

than  the  transient  off -shoot  of  a  germ  plasm, 
which  has  an  unbroken  continuity  from 
generation  to  generation,  from  age  to  age. 
This  marvelous  embryonic  substance  is 
eternally  young,  eternally  productive,  eter- 
nally forming  new  individuals  to  grow  up 
and  to  perish,  while  it  remains  in  the  pro- 
geny always  youthful,  always  increasing, 
always  the  same.  "Thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  generations  which  have  arisen  in 
the  course  of  ages  were  its  products,  but  it 
lives  on  in  the  youngest  generations  with 
the  power  of  giving  origin  to  coming  mil- 
lions. The  individual  organism  is  transient, 
but  its  embryonic  substance,  which  produces 
the  mortal  tissues,  preserves  itself  imper- 
ishable, everlasting,  an.d  constant."15  This 
astounding  revelation  not  only  necessitates 
a  readjustment  of  our  ideas  on  heredity,  but 
it  gives  to  human  life  a  new  and  a  not  very 
pleasant  meaning.  It  makes  us  "falter 
where  we  firmly  trod"  to  feel  that  man 
comes  within  the  sweep  of  these  profound 
and  inviolate  biological  laws,  but  it  explains 


The  Gallionians  33 

why  nature  —  so  careless  of  the  single  life, 
so  careful  of  the  type  —  is  so  lavish  with 
the  human  beads,  and  so  haphazard  in  their 
manufacture,  spoiling  hundreds,  leaving 
many  imperfect,  snapping  them  and  crack- 
ing them  at  her  will,  caring  nothing  if  the 
precious  cord  on  which  they  are  strung  — - 
the  germ  plasm  —  remains  unbroken.  Sci- 
ence minimizes  to  the  vanishing-point  the 
importance  of  the  individual  man,  and 
claims  that  the  cosmic  and  biological  laws 
which  control  his  destiny  are  wholly  incon- 
sistent with  the  special-providence  view  in 
which  we  were  educated,  —  that  beneficent, 
fatherly  providence  which  cares  for  the 
sparrow  and  numbers  the  very  hairs  of  our 
head. 


IV 


THE  TERESIANS16 

HERE  remains  for  consideration 
the  most  interesting  group  of  the 
three  to  the  scientific  student,  re- 
presenting the  very  opposite  pole  in  life's 
battery,  and  either  attracting  or  repelling, 
according  as  he  has  been  negatively  or  posi- 
tively charged  from  his  cradle.  There  have 
always  been  two  contending  principles  in 
human  affairs,  an  old-time  antagonism  which 
may  be  traced  in  mythology  and  in  the  the- 
ologies, and  which  in  philosophy  is  repre- 
sented by  idealism  and  realism,  in  every-day 
life  by  the  head  and  the  heart.  Aristotle 
and  Plato,  Abelard  and  St.  Bernard,  Huxley 
and  Newman,  represent  in  different  periods 
the  champions  of  the  intellect  and  of  the 
emotions.  Now  on  the  question  of  the  im- 


The  Teresians  35 

mortality  of  the  soul,  the  only  people  who 
have  ever  had  perfect  satisfaction  are  the 
idealists,  who  walk  by  faith  and  not  by 
sight.  "  Many  are  the  wand  bearers,  few 
are  the  mystics,"  said  Plato.  "  Many  be 
called,  but  few  are  chosen,"  said  Christ.  Of 
the  hosts  that  cry  Lord  !  Lord  !  few  have 
that  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature 
which  has  characterized  in  every  age  those 
strong  souls  laden  with  fire  who  have 
kept  alive  this  sentiment  of  immortality, 
—  the  little  flock  of  Teresians,  who  feel 
that  to  them  it  is  given  to  know  the  mys-  Matthew, 

xiii.  ii 

teries. 

Not  always  the  wise  men  after  the  flesh 
(except  among  the  Greeks),  more  often  the 
lowly  and  obscure,  women  more  often  than 
men,  these  Teresians  have  ever  formed  the 
moral  leaven  of  humanity.  Narrow,  preju- 
diced, often  mistaken  in  worldly  ways  and 
methods,  they  alone  have  preserved  in  the 
past,  and  still  keep  for  us  to-day,  the  faith 
that  looks  through  death.  Children  of 
Light,  children  of  the  Spirit,  whose  ways 


36  Science  and  Immortality 

are  foolishness  to  the  children  of  this 
world,  mystics,  idealists,  with  no  strong 
reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  them,  yet 
they  compel  admiration  and  imitation  by 
the  character  of  the  life  they  lead  and  the 
beneficence  of  the  influence  they  exert. 
The  serene  faith  of  Socrates  with  the  cup 
of  hemlock  at  his  lips,  the  heroic  devotion 
of  a  St.  Francis  or  a  St.  Teresa,  but  more 
often  for  each  one  of  us  the  beautiful  life 
in  Memo-  of  some  good  woman  whose  — 

riant,  xxxii 

Eyes  are  homes  of  faithful  prayer, 

Whose  loves  in  higher  love  endure, 

do  more  to  keep  alive  among  the  Laodiceans 
a  belief  in  immortality  than  all  the  preach- 
ing in  the  land.  Some  of  you  may  recall 
how  strongly  this  is  brought  out  in  Cardinal 
Newman's  University  Sermon,  "  Personal 
Influence,  the  Means  of  Propagating  the 
Truth."  w 

Though  a  little  flock,  this  third  group  is 
the  salt  of  the  earth,  so  far  as  preserving 
for  us  a  firm  conviction  of  the  existence  of 


Tbe  Teresians  $j 

another  and  a  better  world.  Not  by  the 
lips,  but  by  the  life,  are  men  influenced 
in  their  beliefs ;  and  when  reason  calls  in 
vain  and  arguments  fall  on  deaf  ears,  the 
still  small  voice  of  a  life  lived  in  the  full 
faith  of  another  may  charm  like  the  lute 
of  Orpheus  and  compel  an  unwilling  assent 
by  a  strong,  indefinable  attraction,  not  to 
be  explained  in  words,  outside  the  laws  of 
philosophy,  —  a  something  which  is  not  ap- 
parent to  the  senses,  and  which  is  manifest 
only  in  its  effects.  In  that  most  character- 
istic Eastern  scene  before  King  Darius,  in 
the  discussion,  Which  is  the  strongest  thing  i 

iv 

in  the  world,  Zorobabel  was  right  in  giv- 
ing woman  the  preeminence,  since  she  is 
the  incarnation  of  the  emotional,  —  of  that 
element  in  life  which  sways  like  a  reed 
the  minds  of  men. 

The  remarkable  development  of  the  mate- 
rial side  of  existence  may  mate  us  feel  that 
Reason  is  King,  with  science  as  the  prime 
minister,  but  this  is  a  most  short-sighted 
view  of  the  situation.  To-day  as  always 


38  Science  and  Immortality 

the  heart  controls,  not  alone  the  beliefs, 
but  the  actions  of  men,  in  whose  life  the 
head  counts  for  little,  partly  because  so  few 
are  capable  of  using  their  faculties,  but 
more  particularly  because  we  are  under  the 
dominion  of  the  emotions,  and  our  deeds 
are  the  outcome  of  passion  and  prejudice, 
of  sentiment  and  usage  much  more  than 
of  reason.  From  the  standpoint  of  science, 
representing  the  head,  there  is  an  irrecon- 
cilable hostility  to  this  emotional  or  cardiac 
side  of  life's  problems,  yet  as  one  of  the 
most  important  facts  in  man's  history  it 
has  to  be  studied,  and  has  been  studied 

William  in  a  singularly  lucid  way  in  this  Univer- 
sity by  one  recognized  everywhere  as  a 
master  in  Israel.  Unfortunately,  with  the 
heart  man  believeth,  not  alone  unto  right- 
eousness, but  unto  every  possible  vagary, 
from  Apollonius  of  Tyana  to  Joseph  Smith. 
Where  is  the  touchstone  to  which  a  man 

Ethics  may  bring  his  emotions  to  the  test,  when 
as  the  great  Stagyrite  remarks,  ordinary 
opinions  are  not  less  firmly  held  by  some 


The  Teresians  39 

than  positive  knowledge  by  others  ?  In  our 
temporizing  days  man  is  always  seeking 
a  safe  middle  ground  between  loyalty  to 
the  intellectual  faculty  and  submission  to 
authority  in  an  unreasoning  acceptance  of 
the  things  of  the  spirit.  On  the  question 
of  immortality  the  only  enduring  enlight- 
enment is  through  faith.  "  Only  believe," 
and  "  he  that  believeth,"  —  these  are  the 
commandments  with  comfort ;  not  "  only 
think,"  and  "  he  that  reasoneth,"  for  these 
are  the  commandments  of  science.  To 
many  the  awkwardness  of  the  mental  pre- 
dicament would  be  more  keenly  felt  were 
it  not  for  the  subtleness  and  suppleness  of 
our  understanding,  which  is  double  and  Montaigne 
diverse,  just  as  the  matters  are  double  and 
diverse. 

Though  his  philosophy  finds  nothing  to 
support  it,  at  least  from  the  standpoint  of 
Terence  the  scientific  student  should  be 
ready  to  acknowledge  the  value  of  a  belief 
in  a  hereafter  as  an  asset  in  human  life.  In 
the  presence  of  so  many  mysteries  which 


4O  Science  and  Immortality 

have  been  unveiled,  in  the  presence  of  so 
many  yet  unsolved,  he  cannot  be  dogmatic 
and  deny  the  possibility  of  a  future  state  ; 
and  however  distressing  such  a  negative  at- 
titude of  mind  to  the  Teresian,  like  Pyrrho, 
he  will  ask  to  be  left,  reserving  his.  judg- 
ment, but  still  inquiring.  He  will  recognize 
that  amid  the  turbid  ebb  and  flow  of  human 
misery,  a  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead  and  the  life  of  the  world  to  come  is 
the  rock  of  safety  to  which  many  of  the 
noblest  of  his  fellows  have  clung ;  he  will 
gratefully  accept  the  incalculable  comfort 
of  such  a  belief  to  those  sorrowing  for  pre- 
cious friends  hid  in  death's  dateless  night ; 
he  will  acknowledge  with  gratitude  and 
reverence  the  service  to  humanity  of  the 
great  souls  who  have  departed  this  life  in 
a  sure  and  certain  hope — but  this  is  all. 
Whether  across  death's  threshold  we  step 
.from  life  to  life,  or  whether  we  go  whence 
we  shall  not  return,  even  to  the  land  of 
darkness,  as  darkness  itself,  he  cannot  tell. 
Nor  is  this  strange.  Science  is  organized 


Tfje  Teresians  41 

knowledge,  and  knowledge  is  of  things  we 
see.  Now  the  things  that  are  seen  are  tem- 
poral ;  of  the  things  that  are  unseen  sci- 
ence knows  nothing,  and  has  at  present  no 
means  of  knowing  anything. 

The  man  of  science  is  in  a  sad  quandary 
to-day.  He  cannot  but  feel  that  the  emo- 
tional side  to  which  faith  leans  makes  for 
all  that  is  bright  and  joyous  in  life.  Fed 
on  the  dry  husks  of  facts,  the  human  heart 
has  a  hidden  want  which  science  cannot 
supply ;  as  a  steady  diet  it  is  too  strong 
and  meaty,  and  hinders  rather  than  pro- 
motes harmonious  mental  metabolism.  In 
illustration,  what  a  sad  confession  that 
emotional  Dryasdust,  Herbert  Spencer,  has  ***'  y 
made  when  he  admits  that  he  preferred 
a  third-rate  novel  to  Plato  and  that  he 
could  not  read  Homer!  Extremes  meet. 
The  great  idealist  would  have  banished 
poets  from  his  Republic  as  teachers  of 
myths  and  fables,  and  had  the  apostle  of 
evolution  been  dictator  of  a  new  Utopia, 
his  Index  Expurgatorius  would  have  been 


42  Science  and  Immortality 

still  more  rigid.  To  keep  his  mind  sweet 
the  modern  scientific  man  should  be  satu- 
rated with  the  Bible  and  Plato,  with  Homer, 
Shakespeare,  and  Milton ;  to  see  life  through 
their  eyes  may  enable  him  to  strike  a  bal- 
ance between  the  rational  and  the  emo- 
tional, which  is  the  most  serious  difficulty 
of  the  intellectual  life. 

A  word  in  conclusion  to  the  young  men 
in  the  audience.  As  perplexity  of  soul  will 
be  your  lot  and  portion,  accept  the  situation 
with  a  good  grace.  The  hopes  and  fears 
which  make  us  men  are  inseparable,  and 
this  wine-press  of  Doubt  each  one  of  you 
must  tread  alone.  It  is  a  trouble  from 
which  no  man  may  deliver  his  brother  or 
make  agreement  with  another  for  him.  Bet- 
ter that  your  spirit's  bark  be  driven  far 
Shelley,  from  the  shore  —  far  from  the  trembling 

Adonais 

throng  whose  sails  were  never  to  the  tem- 
pest given  —  than  that  you  should  tie  it 
up  to  rot  at  some  lethean  wharf.  On  the 
question  before  us  wide  and  far  your  hearts 
will  range  from  those  early  days  when 


ne  Teresians  43 

matins  and  evensong,  evensong  and  matins 
sang  the  larger  hope  of  humanity  into  your 
young  souls.  In  certain  of  you  the  changes 
and  chances  of  the  years  ahead  will  reduce 
this  to  a  vague  sense  of  eternal  continuity, 
with  which,  as  Walter  Pater  says,  none  of 
us  wholly  part.  In  a  very  few  it  will  be  be- 
gotten again  to  the  lively  hope  of  the  Tere- 
sians ;  while  a  majority  will  retain  the  sab- 
batical interest  of  the  Laodicean,  as  little 
able  to  appreciate  the  fervid  enthusiasm  of 
the  one  as  the  cold  philosophy  of  the  othei^ 
Some  of  you  will  wander  through  all  phases, 
to  come  at  last,  I  trust,  to  the  opinion  of 
Cicero,  who  had  rather  be  mistaken  with 
Plato  than  be  in  the  right  with  those  who 
deny  altogether  the  life  after  death ;  and 
this  is  my  own  confessio  fidei. 

Immortality  is  a  complex  problem,  dif- 
ficult to  talk  about,  still  more  difficult  to 
write  upon  with  any  measure  of  intelligence 
or  consistency.  Like  Simias,  in  the  Golden 
Dialogue  of  the  great  master,  a  majority  of 
sensible  men  will  feel  oppressed  by  the 


44  Science  and  Immortality 

greatness  of  the  subject  and  the  feebleness 
of  man ;  and  it  is  with  these  feelings  I  close 
this  simple  objective  statement  of  some  of 
the  existing  conditions  of  thought. 


NOTES 


NOTES 


NOTE  i,  page  3. 

"  He  gave  the  little  wealth  he  had 

To  build  a  house  for  fools  and  mad : 
And  show'd  by  one  satiric  touch 
No  nation  wanted  it  so  much." 

Verses  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Swift. 

NOTE  2,  page  6. 

"  I  am  a  true  labourer;  I  earn  that  I  eat,  get  that 
I  wear,  owe  no  man  hate,  envy  no  man's  happi- 
ness, glad  of  other  men's  good,  content  with  my 
harm,  and  the  greatest  of  my  pride  "  (to  paraphrase 
Corin's  words)  is  to  see  my  patients  get  well,  and 
my  students  work. 

NOTE  3,  page  10. 

A  friend  (J.  S.  B.),  thoroughly  conversant  with 
Eastern  life  and  thought,  sends  the  following  criti- 
cism of  this  statement :  "  Jowett's  mistake  is  not  his 
own.  He  merely  repeats  the  usual  Western  error 


48  Notes 

of  thinking  —  perhaps  from  the  form  of  the  word 
—  that  Nirvana  means  annihilation  in  the  sense  of 
destruction,  whereas  in  the  East  they  understand 
by  it  annihilation  through  growth,  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  seed  is  annihilated  in  the  grown  plant, 
the  ovum  in  the  animal,  or  any  germ  or  embryonic 
form  in  its  complete  development.  As  the  possible 
development  of  man  is  infinite,  he  is  in  the  same 
way  annihilated  as  man  by  growing  to  be  coexten- 
sive with  the  universe,  which  is  the  natural  course 
of  things  according  to  the  Eastern  view,  —  the  nor- 
mal process  of  growth,  which  may  be  hastened 
intentionally  if  desirable." 

NOTE  4,  page  10. 
Letters  of  a  Chinese  Official,  1902. 

NOTE  5,  page  n. 

Nowhere  is  this  philosophy  of  life  so  graphically 
described  as  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  chapter  ii. : 

"  Our  life  is  short  and  tedious,  and  in  the  death 
of  a  man  there  is  no  remedy :  neither  was  there  any 
man  known  to  have  returned  from  the  grave.  For 
we  are  born  at  all  adventure :  and  we  shall  be  here- 
after as  though  we  had  never  been  :  for  the  breath 
in  our  nostrils  is  as  smoke,  and  a  little  spark  in  the 
moving  of  our  heart :  which  being  extinguished, 
our  body  shall  be  turned  into  ashes,  and  our  spirit 


Notes  49 

shall  vanish  as  the  soft  air.  And  our  name  shall  be 
forgotten  in  time,  and  no  man  shall  have  our  works 
in  remembrance,  and  our  life  shall  pass  away  as  the 
trace  of  a  cloud,  and  shall  be  dispersed  as  a  mist, 
that  is  driven  away  with  the  beams  of  the  sun,  and 
overcome  with  the  heat  thereof.  For  our  time  is  a 
very  shadow  that  passeth  away ;  and  after  our  end 
there  is  no  returning :  for  it  is  fast  sealed,  so  that 
no  man  cometh  again.  Come  on  therefore,  let  us 
enjoy  the  good  things  that  are  present :  and  let  us 
speedily  use  the  creatures  like  as  in  youth.  Let  us 
fill  ourselves  with  costly  wine  and  ointments  :  and 
let  no  flower  of  the  spring  pass  by  us  :  let  us  crown 
ourselves  with  rosebuds,  before  they  be  withered  : 
let  none  of  us  go  without  his  part  of  our  volup- 
tuousness :  let  us  leave  tokens  of  our  joyfulness 
in  every  place :  for  this  is  our  portion,  and  our  lot 
is  this." 

NOTE  6,  page  13. 

"  The  soul's  dark  cottage,  batter'd  and  decay'd, 
Lets  in  new  light  through  chinks  that  Time  hath 

made : 

Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become 
As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home. 
Leaving  the  old,  both  worlds  at  once  they  view 
That  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  the  new." 

Old  Age,  Edmund  Waller. 


50  Notes 

NOTE  7,  page  13. 
Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance,  1902. 

NOTE  8,  page  13. 
Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance,  1902. 

NOTE  9,  page  16. 

Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  Accident  Bul- 
letin, No.  8. 

NOTE  10,  page  17. 

Statistics  collected  by  the  Journal  of  the  Ameri- 
can Medical  Association,  January  30,  1904. 

NOTE  n,  page  18. 

"  By  brothers'  blows,  by  brothers'  blood, 
Our  souls  are  gashed  and  stained. 
Alas  !  What  horror  have  we  fled  ? 
What  crimes  not  wrought  ?  What  hath  the  dread 
Of  heaven  our  youth  restrained  ?  " 

(HORACE,  Carmina,  i.  35,  Theodore  Martin's  Trans- 
lation.) 

NOTE  12,  page  19. 

"  Dr.  Howe's  hand  moved  slowly  back  to  the  big 
pocket  in  one  of  his  black  coat-tails,  and  brought 
out  a  small,  shabby  prayer-book. 

" '  You  will  let  me  read  the  prayers  for  the  sick,' 


Notes  51 

he  continued  gently,  and  without  waiting  for  a  re- 
ply began  to  say  with  more  feeling  than  Dr.  Howe 
often  put  into  the  reading  of  the  service,  — 

" '  "  Dearly  beloved,  know  this,  that  Almighty 
God  is  the  Lord  of  life  and  death,  and  of  all  things 
to  them  pertaining  ;  as  " '  — 

"'Archibald,'  said  Mr.  Denner  faintly,  'you 
will  excuse  me,  but  this  is  not  —  not  necessary,  as 
it  were.' 

"  Dr.  Howe  looked  at  him  blankly,  the  prayer- 
book  closing  in  his  hand. 

" '  I  mean,'  Mr.  Denner  added,  '  if  you  will  allow 
me  to  say  so,  the  time  for  —  for  speaking  thus  has 
passed.  It  is  now,  with  me,  Archibald.' 

"There  was  a  wistful  look  in  his  eyes  as  he 
spoke. 

" '  I  know,'  answered  Dr.  Howe  tenderly,  think- 
ing that  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick  must  wait,  '  but 
God  enters  into  now ;  the  Eternal  is  our  refuge,  a 
very  present  help  in  time  of  trouble.' 

"'Ah — yes,'  said  the  sick  man;  'but  I  should 
like  to  approach  this  from  our  usual  —  point  of  view, 
if  you  will  be  so  good.  I  have  every  respect  for 
your  office,  but  would  it  not  be  easier  for  us  to 
speak  of  —  of  this  as  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
speaking  on  all  subjects,  quite  —  in  our  ordinary 
way,  as  it  were  ?  You  will  pardon  me,  Archibald, 
if  I  say  anything  else  seems  —  ah  —  unreal  ? ' " 


52  Notes 

NOTE  13,  page  26. 

This  it  was  which  worried  Henry  More,  the 
Platonist,  whose  treatise  on  the  "  Immortality  of  the 
Soul "  is  full  of  the  wonders  of  the  psychical  research 
of  that  day.  "  For  if  we  do  but  observe  the  great 
difference  of  our  intellectual  operations  in  infancy 
and  dotage,  from  what  they  are  when  we  are  in  the 
prime  of  our  years ;  and  how  that  our  wit  grows  up 
by  degrees,  flourishes  for  a  time,  and  at  last  decays, 
keeping  the  same  pace  with  the  changes  that  age 
and  years  bring  into  our  body,  which  observes  the 
same  laws  that  flowers  and  plants  do :  what  can  we 
suspect,  but  that  the  soul  of  man,  which  is  so  mag- 
nificently spoken  of  amongst  the  learned,  is  nothing 
else  but  a  temperature  of  body,  and  that  it  grows 
and  spreads  with  it,  both  in  bigness  and  virtues,  and 
withers  and  dies  as  the  body  does,  or  at  least  thajt 
it  does  wholly  depend  on  the  body  in  its  operations, 
and  that  therefore  there  is<  no  sense  nor  perception 
of  anything  after  death?  "  (Works,  4th  ed.,  1713, 
p.  225.) 

NOTE  14,  page  30. 
Human  Personality,  London,  1903. 
NOTE  15,  page  32. 

Noll,  quoted  by  Beard,  Review  of  Neurology  and 
Psychiatry,  January,  1904. 


Notes  53 

NOTE  1 6,  page  34. 

Saint  Teresa,  1515-1582.  In  a  paragraph  before 
A  Hymn  to  the  Name  and  Honour  of  the  Admir- 
able Saint  Teresa,  Richard  Crashaw  thus  describes 
her  :  "  A  woman,  for  angelical  height  of  specula- 
tion, for  masculine  courage  of  performance,  more 
than  a  woman,  who  yet  a  child  outran  maturity,  and 
durst  plot  a  martyrdom."  In  another  poem  he  thus 
apostrophizes  her :  — 

"  O  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  desires ! 
By  all  thy  dower  of  lights  and  fires ; 
By  all  the  eagle  in  thee,  all  the  dove ; 
By  all  thy  lives  and  deaths  of  love ; 
By  thy  large  draughts  of  intellectual  day  ; 
And  by  thy  thirsts  of  love  more  large  than  they; 
By  all  thy  brim-fill'd  bowls  of  fierce  desire ; 
By  thy  last  morning's  draught  of  liquid  fire  ; 
By  the  full  kingdom  of  that  final  kiss 
That  seized  thy  parting  soul,  and  seal  'd  thee  his  ; 
By  all  the  Heavens  thou  hast  in  him 
(Fair  sister  of  the  seraphim) ; 
By  all  of  him  we  have  in  thee  ; 
Leave  nothing  of  myself  in  me. 
Let  me  so  read  thy  life,  that  I 
Unto  all  life  of  mine  may  die." 

An  excellent  paper  upon  her  life  and  work,  by 
Annie  Fields,  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for 


54  Notes 

March,  1903.  In  an  article,  "  L'HysteVie  de  Sainte 
The*rese,"  in  the  Archives  de  Neurologic,  1902,  Dr. 
Rouby  gives  an  analysis  of  her  life  and  writings 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  modern  scientific  alienist. 

NOTE  17,  page  36. 

"  The  men  commonly  held  in  popular  estimation 
are  greatest  at  a  distance ;  they  become  small  as 
they  are  approached  ;  but  the  attraction  exerted  by 
unconscious  holiness  is  of  an  urgent  and  irresist- 
ible nature  ;  it  persuades  the  weak,  the  timid,  the 
wavering,  and  the  inquiring ;  it  draws  forth  the  af- 
fection and  loyalty  of  all  who  are  in  a  measure 
like-minded ;  and  over  the  thoughtless  or  perverse 
multitude  it  exercises  a  sovereign  compulsory 
sway,  bidding  them  fear  and  keep  silence,  on  the 
ground  of  its  own  right  divine  to  rule  them,  —  its 
hereditary  claim  on  their  obedience,  though  they 
understand  not  the  principles  or  counsels  of  that 
spirit,  which  is  born,  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will  of 
the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God." 


Cbe  flitcrrfi&e 

EUctrotyfxd  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &*  Co. 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


i   MVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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